While you work on your Final Round entries, crossword fans are invited to solve a puzzle I've constructed especially for this tournament. It's embedded below, but if you're having difficulty with the display, you can also solve it on the Crosshare website (where you can find more of my puzzles too, if you like). Enjoy!
Saturday, April 29, 2023
Sunday, April 23, 2023
ST20.3 Results
Round 3 is in the books, and it's got a lesson for us all on the value of shadowing: after being cut in Round 2, he submitted a shadow entry and was reinstated. That song has scored at the top of the list. Congratulations to our Round 3 winner, Sober!
Continue reading for the full results and links to judges' reviews!
ST20.3 Reviews and Rankings - See-Man-Ski
Saturday, April 22, 2023
SpinTunes 20 Round 4 Challenge
Photo Finish: Write and record a song inspired by the below photo by Clairellyn Sommersmith.
If it's not displaying well on your device, you can also view or download the photo in full resolution here.
Submitting Entries:
- Your entry must be received by Sunday, April 30, 2023 @ 11:59 PM EDT. Otherwise it'll be posted as a shadow. Received means that it has to appear in my e-mail inbox (spintunescontest@gmail.com) by the given deadline. I will be going by the time stamp on the e-mail. One minute late is too late.
- You are allowed and encouraged to submit a draft of your song early just in case something horrible happens and you miss the deadline. Then you can add polish to your song and send in a better version closer to the deadline. The last version received prior to the deadline is your official entry.
- Lyrics are mandatory. No instrumentals. Having no lyrics will get you disqualified.
- SUBMITTING BY EMAIL: Send your file in a format that BandCamp accepts. (.wav or .flac) (at least 16-bit/44.1kHz) Do not send MP3s.
- Name your file the song's title + your band name, without punctuation.
- The subject line of the e-mail should identify the challenge and your band's name. Something like this would be fine: "ST20R4 - All the Robots".
- Include the song lyrics in the body of the e-mail.
- Include information on anyone that needs credited if you collaborated with someone.
- ALTERNATE FILE SHARING OPTIONS: If your file is too big for an email attachment, you may email me a link to where I can download the song. The email still needs to land in my inbox by the deadline.
- If you have a Bandcamp account you can just send me a link to your song if you include all the info I mentioned for emails. Info such as lyrics and song credits can be included in the email or on the song's Bandcamp page. Make sure you have it set as a free download, and have it set so that I don't have to put in an e-mail to download it if you pick this option.
- You may also use a file sharing service such as DropBox, WeTransfer, Google Drive, etc. Include in the email any required information (such as lyrics) that you couldn't include in the file. Make sure I have permission to download the file, and please follow directions so your file doesn't wind up in my spam or trash folder accidentally.
- SONG BIOS: In addition to lyrics and any necessary credits, you are welcome to include a "song bio", with any information you feel is useful. This could include your inspiration for the song, citations for any obscure references within the lyrics, an explanation of how your song met the challenge, etc. Some challenges may require you to supply certain info in your song bio. Since the judges are volunteers with lives outside of SpinTunes, song bios can help them zero in on aspects of the song you feel are important. However, if your song requires a multi-paragraph explanation in order to understand and appreciate it, this is probably a sign that it doesn't stand up well on its own, and its ranking may reflect that.
- You can send in an entry to SpinTunes 20 without competing. Just tell me it's a "Shadow Song". It will be played at the listening party, but won't be ranked and you might not receive feedback from the judges. Check the FAQ if you don't know what that means. You can even complete past challenges from previous contests. It's a nice way of playing along if you can't commit to the schedule or you just want to get your feet wet.
- The only other way to get your music played at the listening party is to cover "Today's The Day" by Inverse T. Clown or "Right Again" by Mandibles.
Feel free to leave any questions in the comments.
Thursday, April 20, 2023
SpinTunes 20 Round 3 Album
If you missed the Round 3 Listening Party on Monday night, the full Round 3 album, with art by Matt Schubbe, is available to stream or download. Listen at Bandcamp or in the player embedded below.
Monday, April 17, 2023
ST20.3 Listening Party and Deadline News
The Round 3 deadline has passed. Congratulations to all the contestants who stretched themselves, learned something new, and shared it with us in song!
15 of the 19 eligible contestants submitted songs by the deadline, which left room for 3 shadows to be reinstated, bringing us back to 18 entries as originally planned. Welcome back to the competition, Phlub, Sober, and The Popped Hearts!
The songs of Round 3, both competing entries and shadows, will be debuted tonight at a Listening Party hosted by Tommy G. The Listening Party is currently scheduled for 9 pm; delays or updates to the scheduled time will be posted on Twitter.
Join us for the Listening Party on YouTube or watch in the embedded player below. If you're on YouTube, be sure to switch the chat option from "Top Chat" to "Live Chat" to join in on the conversation as we hear these songs for the first time!
Monday, April 10, 2023
ST20.2 Reviews - Micah Sommersmith
My hope was that this round would result in a bunch of catchy chorus hooks, and boy howdy did you deliver. Between travel with my family early in the week and extra church services later in the week, I didn’t have as much time to listen as I would have liked, so it helped how instantly memorable many of these songs were.
Apologies if my reviews are not as thorough as I would have liked due to the aforementioned conflicts.
Berni Armstrong - Sleep
The descending vocal line in the chorus is instantly memorable and satisfying (especially when it’s harmonized in later appearances), but it could use some sort of ornamentation or variation to keep the interest up.
The Pannacotta Army - Moar
The guy speaking in your audio sample has a very distinctive and repetitive cadence to his voice, such that it’s easy to perceive a melody in the spoken passage. The problem is that the melody doesn’t particularly line up rhythmically or harmonically with the rest of the music. And the words the guy is saying are certainly thematically related to the sung lyrics, but the thematic content of the lyrics is perfectly coherent without the sample. In sum, I don’t think the sample adds much to your song and could be excised.
Otherwise, the song is a groovy, pleasant listen, if rather repetitive.
Yeslessness - White Feather
I don’t know what this song is about, but I don’t particularly care, because you’ve so compellingly created an atmosphere and I’m just along for the ride.
I love the vocal layering in general, although my personal bugbear is when consonants don’t line up in homorhythmic vocal parts. There’s a little of that here in places. And there is a general sense of chaos sometimes in the second half of the verses leading into the choruses. Part of this can be solved with some different mixing decisions; whether through EQing, reverb, panning, or some other technique, there are ways to make the lines more distinct so that their overlapping doesn’t just come across as clutter.
Bubba & The Ghost of the Kraken - Hideaway
The hook is absolutely gorgeous and has probably spent more time in my head than anything else this round. The double key change at the end feels gratuitous to me; this may be a knee-jerk reaction due to my experience in church music, where the use of a bump-up key change (or two, or three) to liven up an otherwise ho-hum song is a well-established cliché. Your song is too good for that!
chewmeupspitmeout - Love Song
I love the chucka-chucka guitars and the overall dance-pop feel!
You’ve made an interesting choice in that you know your narrator is not behaving well, but your narrator himself knows it as well. This raises the question of whether he is narrating this from a later time and looking back on the night at the disco, and if so, how does he feel about how he behaved? Is he regretful? Does he want to do better? Has he changed? Because otherwise it’s difficult to square his actions with his own narration of them.
The alternative is to not give your narrator that self-awareness, but you still have to figure out a way to tip off the listener about how you, the author, feel. In Round 1 I think that The Evil Genius Formerly Known As Timmy did this pretty well with “Monkey Videos”, but it may not have been evident to all listeners. It’s a fine line to walk, and the risk is that the artist themself comes off as looking like a jerk, but I think it makes for a more interesting song.
Stacking Theory - Breathe In and Hold It
Gorgeous song although it took a number of listens to make an impression on me. The opening two-note loop sounds like breathing in and out… but the title is “Breathe in and hold it”! A very silly nit to pick? Perhaps!
Jeff Walker - Unforgivable
I’m a Jeff Walker fan. Sonically, this song doesn’t quite grab me as strongly as your Round 1 song, but I like hearing the grittier, more electric sound, contrasting with the acoustic loveliness of “Try Again”.
The lyrics do a good job portraying the hope, horror, and disillusionment of the Vietnam generation. The weariness of your vocal suits the song perfectly; I could imagine an angrier, more abrasive version of this song (in fact, maybe CCR already recorded it), but as it is you sound too tired to be angry. Heartbreaking.
Daniel Sitler - Awkward
A summery indie jam with great lyrics about young love and the trouble that results when the lovers aren’t quite in the same place. You don’t exactly spell it out explicitly, but I’m assuming that one person is more comfortable openly claiming a queer identity than the other. (Side note: I’m sure there are lots of songs on this topic, but for me the one that immediately comes to mind is “Boyfriend” by Tegan and Sara, which is just a brilliant, brilliant song.)
My wife heard this song early in the judging period and said it was “from the Kimwa Dawson school”, which I don’t think is wrong, and I also don’t think is an insult.
Your voice has sort of a dark, closed-off quality that I don’t have the vocal expertise to really comment on intelligently, but in general I find it easier to listen to when your vocals are layered vs. when you just have a single vocal line - e.g. at 0:41 I think you have a doubled vocal up the octave, or maybe just singing with a brighter tone, and it lends the whole song more energy.
The Evil Genius formerly known as Timmy - Maria
Love the dance beat and the stuttering synth in the chorus. The electric guitar that comes in briefly in the bridge is tasty and I’d have been happy to hear more of that.
I enjoyed hearing the extended phrase and borrowed chord under “pornographic detail.” You have a gift for choosing specific details: faded jeans, Camels. I wouldn’t have minded even more. I’m not exactly sure what “never forget” means in this context; the general idea seems to be that in middle school you think this is the most important time of your life and that you’ll remember it forever, whereas the reality when you grow up is very different. But in that case, why the details about your memories of Maria?
The vocal rhythm on “I promised to remember” in the bridge is awkwardly crammed in. I don’t know what you were going for, but it may have been better to cut out the repeated “remember” so that you can sing “I promised to remember you” over the length of two lines without the clutter.
James Young - War
This title hook is extremely strong. Both your lead vocal and the guitar solo are fantastic; in fact, the expressive performance of both plus the slight distortion on your vocal meant that for the first few notes I thought the guitar solo was an anguished, wordless continuation of the vocal line. A really cool effect!
The verses feel samey throughout: the snare hits monotonously on beats two and three when a more rhythmically-involved marching military-style snare line would have been more engaging and also appropriate to the subject matter. And it’s nice to hear the bass play its little fill when between the vocal lines, but it’s the same figure every time so the engagement doesn’t last.
Single Pint of Failure - Alone
The contrary motion of the harmony parts in the chorus is gorgeous. Musically, the verses drag as each verse is essentially the exact same melodic line repeated four times. Aside from that chorus harmony, the highlight of the song is the lyrics, and what heartbreaking lyrics they are.
Tunes By LJ - Capital
Usually the chorus is the most exciting, high-energy part of the song, the part that makes you get up and move. In your entry here, though, you’ve made each chorus feel like a resting place, a respite from the off-kilter bustle of the verses. It works!
The contrast in tone between the lyrics and music feels very intentional, and also works in the song’s favor. On the whole, this song is a collection of individually risky decisions that add up to something that somehow feels effortless and just right. Great work.
Balance Lost - Lost
Gorgeous interplay between the multiple melodic guitar lines. Nice evocative lyrics that suit the mood of the music.
The high voice singing “Lost” during the chorus sounds nice and reverb-y but the sound stops immediately upon articulating the /t/ of the word “lost”, with no tail whatsoever - it makes for a disorientingly artificial effect.
Hot Pink Halo - Phosphorescence
I love the choral sound of the chorus but it feels like you’re trying to troll specifically me with the wash of /s/ consonants. Surely you know how I feel about this!
Also In Blue - Please
My struggle with this song, which I am better able to reconcile on some listens than others, is that I get one vibe from the anguished lyrics and the tense, busy drumming, and a different vibe from the chill piano and the creamy vocal performance. Every individual element is well done, but I want it to feel more cohesive than it does.
Jealous Brother - Oumuamua
Sonically, this song is fantastic. Great hook, great production, great borrowed chord on the "dust bunny" line. Nothing to complain about from me!
Lyrically, I'm all about space stuff as a metaphor for interpersonal stuff (see also Vowl Sounds' "Cassini"), but the metaphor is not super clear here. If it's not a metaphor, it's not clear what it all means either: Oumuamua has betrayed you somehow, but how, exactly? What were your expectations for this space rock, and how did it not fulfill them? Did you think it was an alien spacecraft? Were you hoping it would take you away from the solar system? On the whole the lyrics are vaguely evocative but don't add up to anything coherent for me.
Phlub - Tygart Dam
Move the setting to Canada and I’d swear you’ve unearthed a long-lost Stompin’ Tom Connors song here. This is a solid country ballad. I have just a few complaints about the lyrics: you spend a lot of words describing the dam project, and the accident feels like an afterthought. ("There was an accident" is the most boring, prosaic way you could possibly tell me that there was an accident.) Also: "She hung her head forward" - nobody says this because nobody would think she hung her head in any other direction, plus "forward" makes for too many syllables to fit the line anyway!
Temnere - Deutsch
This feels like a song where familiarity with and fondness for the artist referenced goes a long way toward appreciating the song in front of you. As for me, I don’t think I’ve ever listened to Rammstein; I believe the pastiche is well-done, but this entry doesn’t play to a lot of your personal strengths the way most of your entries do.
The Popped Hearts - The Second Best Time To Plant A Tree
Great garage rock sound. The judges might take issue with you layering additional lyrics over the last chorus, but that's not my problem - absent the limitations of the challenge it's a great effect.
The "loaves and fishes" / "oaves and bitches" couplet is great (I'm always here for reviving no-longer-productive grammatical rules), but the vocal rhythm is extremely cluttered and awkward. And "I fucked around and found out" feels very 2020s to me, making it an odd phrase to include in a song soaked in 90s references.
Mandibles - Désirée
You know that I don't contribute to the rankings, right? You've picked the wrong reviewer to pander to, but what a successful job you did of it. The melodies are exactly the kind I would write if I could write better melodies, the vocal interplay is sublime, and the song as a whole sits in a beautifully ambiguous spot somewhere in the middle of Philip Tagg's axiomatic triangle (if anyone gets this reference it'll be you folks).
Governing Dynamics - Predestination
That guitar solo is real good! I also love that, whether it’s actually a single take or not, it segues smoothly into the chorus riff - too often a guitar solo feels like it appears out of nowhere and then disappears back into nowhere, rather than being one section of a guitar part that is integrated into the song as a whole. In general, you do a good job of creating soundscapes in which the elements all feel like they belong together, although that does mean that individual elements are often more difficult to recall later.
Cavedwellers - Owzat! (Dismissed)
Okay, I’ve been trying to understand the scenario here with my non-existent knowledge of cricket. The narrator is behaving in a manner officially outside the strict rules but within the conventional norms, and the other player calls him out on it, much to the narrator’s frustration? Is that the extremely general idea?
My struggle is that sports like soccer, football, and basketball are easy to understand on a very basic conceptual level: you’re fighting over a treasure, trying to get it to your fort and stop the other team from getting it to their fort. The simplicity of this framework makes the stakes easy to understand and therefore easy to refer to in song. With cricket, my unfamiliarity with not only the specific rules but the underlying conceptual framework itself means that it’s hard for me to grasp the stakes in the song.
The chorus is hella catchy, though.
thanks, brain - Strange
This succeeds brilliantly at what you're aiming for - the sound effects, the vocal delivery on the chorus, it's all fantastic. And the romance element keeps it from coming off as one-note.
JW Hanberry - Maladjusted
An impressively dizzying array of sounds bombard the listener here. The restless turning over of sounds reminds me of some of They Might Be Giants’ early songs - unfortunately some of the ones I’m most likely to skip on re-listening. The inventiveness in the production is appealing but I’d like it to be married to a stronger vocal melody; as it is, the vocal doesn’t leave a strong impression after listening and there is so much going on in the production that no single element leaves a strong impression either.
“BucketHat” Bobby Matheson - Time Enough At Last (Vellichor)
The drums right off the bat make a good first impression, and overall the high-energy rocking sound is pretty engaging, but it seems to be extremely at odds with the lyrics. This genre is not at all what I would associate with the wistful nostalgia and mystery of old bookstores.
Brother Baker feat. Father - Free
The piano sounds fantastic in the sparse, dissonant intro, but when the full band comes in, the piano lines somehow sound both robotic and clumsy. Generally speaking, I don’t think piano is a strong instrument for monophonic lead lines; those melodic lines might come across a lot more successfully as a synth or electric guitar.
Otherwise, this is all fantastic. The energy is similar to your round 1 entry but things are a lot tighter and more professional sounding, especially the huge vocal moments.
Good Niche Gracious - Katzenfrühstück
The layers of synth lines sound pretty great. The drums still need to be louder! The vocals are playful but don’t have the energy of “Cold War Master”; also, in “Cold War Master” the lyrics had some layers to them, in that you delayed the reveal that you’re singing about a snowball fight, not an actual war. Here, the lyrics are one layer deep, which would be fine if the topic were something more compelling than a cat wanting to be fed.
Sober - Home
The wordless falsetto in the chorus is perfectly controlled and pure, which leads me to believe that the rasp on the yodel in verses is an entirely aesthetic choice, and I’m completely baffled as to why you made it. You do something similar on “Leave the Ladder” in SpinTunes 18, but there it’s supported by the high energy of the music and the urgency of the lyric - it sounded like an actual gasp of desperation and it worked. Here, the tempo is sedate, the music is sardonic, and the lyrics, despite the subject matter, are clinical and detached. The yodel is completely out of place and doesn’t serve the song at all.
The Alleviators - Sigh
There's a lot to like here but I keep getting tripped up by the juxtaposition of the airy, dreamy vocals and the cluttered, frenetic drumming in the chorus and especially the prechorus. Pick a lane, please!
Siebass - Home
The piano/orchestra arrangement is a nice change, but the songwriting betrays your pop-punk origins - I think that’s a I-V-vi-IV chord progression throughout the entire song, or close to it? The sound I think you’re going for begs for more variation.
Ironbark - Désolé
A gorgeous song that took a few listens to work on me, unlike “Privilege” which won my heart over immediately. Here of course the heartbreak is played straight, and to great effect.
It seems like you favor a limited sonic palette for each song, which you establish early on and stick to. Here, it's acoustic guitar, organ, and accordion right hand. Were I recording this song, I would be tempted to add snare, left hand accordion oom-pah-pahs, and probably a bunch of other unnecessary stuff to at least some of the choruses. Your restraint is a testament to your confidence in your own skills as a songwriter.
Jerkatorium - Yeah
New podcast theme song perhaps? It’s fun, the hook is catchy, and there’s plenty of charm, but it feels like Jerkatorium on autopilot.
Simon Purchase James - Existe los Regalos
Really lovely guitar playing. The lyrics soar in sung Spanish and land with a thud in the literal, unrhymed spoken English translation. I think you’re doing like a Pete Seeger thing that would make more sense in a live setting, but when we’re listening with the lyrics and translation in front of us, it just makes the song stretch on twice as long as it needs to be, and means that the switch-up to the more energetic section with the strummed guitar feels like an afterthought.
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